[5] During his service as a judge, Gayle presided over the Petition for Freedom of Cornelius Sinclair, a young African American child who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

The Bell Factory, the state's first textile mill, was incorporated in Madison County.

[2] He was Chairman of the Committee on Private Land Claims for the 30th United States Congress.

[1] He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 13, 1849, and received his commission the same day.

[2] Gayle was married to Sarah Ann Haynsworth, formerly a resident of South Carolina, from June 11, 1819, until she died in 1835, due to lockjaw (tetanus).

She was the wife of Gen. Josiah Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance of the Confederate States of America, mother of William Crawford Gorgas, 22nd United States Surgeon General who freed the Panama Canal Zone of yellow fever.